W00T! I got a job

I just got a job as a graphics developer here in Portland. I asked what qualified me to get the position, and he said that rarely do they get a graphics programmer who is innovated enough to learn how it happens beneath "and" how someone can get it running without any hardware acceleration. Of course the company uses Direct3D with hardware acceleration, but it was just that "edge" I have been talking about for so long to complainers and whiners all over on certain boards saying how Andre' LaMothe (book author) "wasted my money." I learned Direct3D before I got into LaMothe's books such as the Tricks series, but what amazed him was I was able to demostrate much more than a typical hardware-dependent 3D programmer these days. Anyway, I just had to boast! All I can say now is cha-ching!! Thanks to everyone who encouraged me up to this point!

I have been talking about for so long to complainers and whiners all over on certain boards saying how Andre' LaMothe (book author) "wasted my money." I learned Direct3D before I got into LaMothe's books such as the Tricks series, but what amazed him was I was able to demostrate much more than a typical hardware-dependent 3D programmer these days.

You calling me a complainer and a whiner eh? What company? And I still wouldn't recommend those books.
But congrats all the same.

But just because A got you B does not mean it applies in all cases so please do not become a 2D rasterization evangelist on the game programming forum.

Wouldn't it be </laughter> and to be more specific, shouldn't it be <laughter type="evil villan">.

Anyway...Grats Dxfoo, what company, I only know a couple from Portland (born and raised here). I have the Tricks of the 3D Programming Guru's book and have gone through it a bit, but never really got into graphics programming.

I would tell but I feel that Bubba would call them up and start throwing rants with nothing to back them up on But thanks for the cheers. I really appreciate it. What's funny is I'm on my second year of computer science and all the other applicants seemed to have degrees. What are the odds of that? I'm making $5k more than what they initially suggested as the salary. I guess it's just one lucky day, and it ends now with a beer.

I would assume high since they would typically pay me less than someone who does have a degree, but they're paying me more than what they first said. At any rate, I'm happy with the salary

There's another reason... some companies like fresh wet clay still smelling to milk... I mean... earth, they can mold to their liking. This usually involves teaching you "their way" of doing things which very rarely is the good way of doing things.

So... congratulations. But also... good luck.

Originally Posted by brewbuck:Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

Bubba's a whiner. He also knows that this +1 is getting me closer to his untimely demise! <laughter=evil villan>HAHAHAHHAH!!!</laughter*>

Nice. I so wish we still had red candy. ...taking aim at Quzah. Or did you already get destroyed by Salem?

And I do have something to back my claims up, namely the books, a thread with a very detailed explanation of certain parts of your post I disagreed with, the www.gamedev.net job section, and the www.gamasutra.com job section.

After a bit of browsing you can determine what the big dev companies want and what they don't want. If I were a up and coming graphics programmer I would probably concentrate on the things they mention in their job postings more than the things I feel I should know.

Anyways it does not matter and this little rant between you and I is over. Nothing more to say on the issue so good luck in your job and congrats.

Cool, I'm glad we can get over this topic. It's really nothing more than education study on the software side, like if you want to know how graphics work beneath. Just the ability to draw those things in software and make them work is really cool to me. When I played Wolf3D back in the day, I was wondering how the hell can that work if the hardware doesn't know crap about 3D? The interest persued on, and as a result I'm pretty interested in improving hardware in the future too. The job I was looking for had Direct3D and obviously hardware acceleration. I know that's what we use in the real world, and I know how to do it, and I do meet today's technology. I enjoy it all, it's just pure interest, Bubba!

Which is fine. But I think directing new people to it will only serve to confuse them. Let them start drawing stuff and see what's going on and then if they want to know how it all works, then good. Trying to study the nuts and bolts at first might deter them from ever using the tools they have available to them.

I had a big post here and was listing good sites but lost it when I went to the site in this window. Arghhh.

Anyways some good books:

Game Code Complete, 2nd ed.Intro to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0DirectX9 Audio Exposed
Any ShaderX<#> book.
Any Gems series book.

A book or two on assembly language programming. This will give you a very good understanding of how the computer actually works and IMO will make you a better programmer. Don't go coding entire apps in asm, but understanding it definitely will not hurt.

Books on vertex and pixel shaders. This is very important because the good old DirectX9 fixed function pipeline is going by by. I have written shaders that I will release to the board when DX10 hits so that people can get lighting to at least work in DX10 even if they don't understand shaders. Vertex-based shading is a thing of the past.

Books on image processing. This is becoming more important as shaders gain popularity. These books have a host of techniques like blooms, glares, flares, anti-aliasing, cartoon shading, etc, etc.

Books on digital audio and DirectMusic.

Books on network programming.

And that's not a complete list. In short, the more you read on various topics, the more well-rounded you are.